Production of metals and alloys.



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

-ALWIN NIESKE, or DRESDEN, AND ERIGH M'U'LLER, or STUTTGART, GERMANY.

PRODUCTION OF METALS AND ALLOYS.

No Drawing.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 23, 1911.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, ALWIN NIESKE, a subject of the King of Saxony, residing at Dresden, Germany, and ERICH Mt'ILLER, a subject of the Emperor of Germany, residing at Stuttgart, Germany, have invented certain new and useful Improvementsin the Production of Metals and Alloys, of which v the following is a specification.

In order to recover the metal from com pounds of a metallic acid with the alkaline earths (for instance, from calcium tungstate) it is not sufiicient to merely smelt them with carbon, but care must be taken that at the same time the alkaline earth shall be bound or slagged. The method heretofore usually adopted, to wit, to use silica for this purpose, has the disadvantage that silicon enters the regulus, which is undesirable, and, furthermore, that the walls of the furnace are attacked. The present invention avoids these defects by smelting with the metallic acid compound and the carbon a sulfid of the same metal or of another metal. If a sulfid of the same metal is employed, the product of the o eration will be the metal itself. If a sulfi of another metal is employed, the product will be a metal alloy. In either case the alkaline earth constituent or constituents of the metal acid compound will be slagged by the sulfur of the sulfid employed.

The characteristic or fundamental principle of reaction incident to the practice of the method is indicated, for instance, in the production of ferro-tungsten from scheelite, by the following equation:

in the following exemplary equation;

from which it is apparent that, if the iron alloy of tungsten is to contain a higher percentage of iron, an additional amount of calcium must be provided to take care of the sulfur not compensated by the calcium of the calcium tungstate. It is evident, however, that the formula must vary,in every instance, with the amount of the iron sulfid present. If it is desired to obtain products entirely free from sulfur it is desirable, in

all such instances, to employ a suitable.

amount of lime for that purpose.

It will be apparent that the principle of reaction embodied in the equation above given can be employed by using other metal acid compounds or metalloid acid compounds and sulfids such as molybdenum, copper, tin, chromium, vanadium, titanium, tantalum, aluminum and uranium for the production of other metals and alloys, and that the alloys are by no means restricted to alloys of but two metals. For instance, in the smelting of carbon with molybdenite and calcium molybdate, we obtain molybdenum; by the smelting of carbon with molybdenite, iron sulfid and scheelite, we obtain ferromolybdenum-tungsten; or by smelting carbon with scheelite and sulfid of copper, we obtain tungsten-copper; etc.

Instead of compounds containing calcium 'we may use compounds containing other bases which form suitable slags with the sulfur of the sulfid. It has likewise beenfound that the metallic acid compounds need not be employed in the smelting operation in the form of preliminarily made products,

but that they may be produced during the smelting operation from the base and the metallic acid or from the oxid of the metal, by subjecting either of them together with a sulfid and carbon to the temperature of the electric furnace. In this manner, for instance, we can obtain an alloy of iron and uranium by the smelting of lime, oxid of uranium, iron sulfid and carbon. Having thus described our invent-ion, what we claim is:

1. In the production of metals and metal alloys in the electric furnace from carbon together with alkaline earth metal compounds of other metals or the constructive elements of said compounds, the method of slagging the alkaline earth metals thereof by the addition of metallic sulfid to the. furnace charge; substantially as described.

2. In the production of metals and met-a1 alloys in the electric furnace from carbon together with alkaline earth metal compounds of other metals or the constructive elements of said compounds, the method of slagging the alkaline earth metals thereof by the addition of metallic sulfid and a base to the furnace charge; substantially as described. V v

3. In the production of metals and metal alloys in the electric furnace from carbon together with alkaline earth metal compounds of other metals or the constructive elements of said compounds, the method of slagging the alkaline earth metals thereof by the addition of metallic sulfid and lime to the furnace charge; substantially as described.

4. In the production of metals and metal alloys in the electric furnace from carbon together with alkaline earth metal compounds of other metals or the constructive elements of said compounds, the method of slagging the alkaline earth metals thereof by the addition of metallic sulfid to the furnace charge in such proportion as not only to slag the alkaline earth metal constituent of the compound but to add a portion of its own metal to the resultant metal product;

substantially as described.

5. In the production of metals and metal alloys in the electric furnace from carbon together with alkaline earth metal compounds of other metals or the constructive elements of said compounds, the method of slagging the alkaline earth metals thereof by the addition of metallic sulfid to the furnace charge in such proportion as not only to slag the alkaline earth metal constituent of the compound but to add a portion of its own metal to the resultant metal product and freeing the resultant metal product from sulfur by the further addition of; a base suitable for slagging the sulfur; substantially as described.

In testimony whereof we afiixed our signatures, in presence of two witnesses.

ALWIN NIESKE. E. MULLER.

Witnesses as to Alwin Nieske:

PAUL AREAS, CLARE SIMON. Witnesses as to E. Muller:

B. DIETHELM, TH. STANISCH. 

